<The RQDX3 would let you use an RX50, but it's not clear to me that this
<buys you very much. I don't think you can install VMS, Ultrix, or NetBSD
<from RX50s. At least, I've never heard of it being done.
Assuming you have it on RX50s it can be done and was in the "early days".
My first V4.6 install was from floppy (RX50) as memory serves there were
some 60-80 of them. NetBSD can boot and do the initial install from RX50
as I'd tried it, unfortunatly it was 1.2C and that really killed the fun
for me. Ultrix was also available on RX50 for a while. NONE were
recommended but if it was all you had...
Allison
My source came through again. Today I picked up what is supposed to be a
PDP-11/03. Can anyone point me to a good URL to identify the cards in it
and provide some general info. I don't know anything about PDP-11s.
Joe
>Okay,
>
> I have some old computer manuals and I just bought a scanner...... Anyone
>care to suggest the best way to convert these manuals to electronic form
>and not take up HUGE amounts of memory?
I'm looking for insight on this as well... I've been experimenting
with various ways to convert my old manuals and listings to electronic
form with mixed results. It is not as easy as it might seem.
The first problem is how labor intensive this is. Just a 100 page manual
could take hours to scan front and back of every page. A scanner with
a GOOD sheet feeder that doesn't skew the pages would be very desirable
here.
Next, is how to balance the text content with the graphical content of
the pages. Do you leave the pages as a scanned image? Or do you
try to OCR them?
Leaving them as a scanned image is the easy way out, but isn't always
practical. Some pages I have have very small print, and the resolution
of the image required to make this text readable makes for huge files.
I have attempted to OCR several of my manuals, but this is labor intensive
as well, since the OCR dictionary seems ignorant to any technical term
or abbriviation, and the formatting of the pages gives it fits too.
What is the answer? I have a huge pile of old, hard to find docs that
I am eager to put in electronic form for many reasons... ease of access,
sharing with others, preserving hard to find information, getting some
space back that's currently occupied by a mountain of books.....
>Thanks,
>
>Arfon
Thanks,
Jim
At 03:09 PM 3/9/99 -0500, Tim wrote:
>>
>>The HP9100 is a very nice "personal compute machine", and the example
>>I inherited was once used to compute the original space probe "slingshot"
>>trajectories by Van Allen at the University of Iowa.
> Can you document that?
They were rescued from a dumpster behind the U of Iowa's Van Allen Hall in
the fall of '89. The 9100 and the plotter have Dept of Navy property stickers
on them that could be used to trace usage back, assuming that any such
records were kept. My conversations with Van Allen and other staff there
didn't turn up anything showing that this was conclusively that calculator,
though the fact that he had used a identical 9100+plotter combination for
the calculations was enough to convince me. (Heck, I would've rescued
the 9100 in any event.)
>If you can prove that it's the one that you have then I'd say you have a
>item of historical significance.
You ought to try hanging out at national labs for a while. Just about
everything gets junked. I had a blast at Caltech/JPL looking in the
back of machine shops for WWII-era rocket assemblies. Found a lot of
really cool assemblies, but obviously no complete rockets :-)
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
>Ok, so a uVax II can't do a 'test 50' to print out its MAC address, and it
>isn't marked on the card itself. I can't seem to get tcpdump to see
>anything, do I need a sniffer to get this puppy?
Hmm - the boot request is actually far below TCP/IP in the protocol
scheme, so it's not surprising that at least some versions of tcpdump
don't see it. Does the tcpdump that you're running have a
promiscuous mode (usually '-p')?
Most boot servers can be set in a mode where they print
out the hardware address of anything that makes a request. From VMS,
you can just log in, do a REPLY/ENABLE, and you'll see the hardware
address whenever anything on the net requests a boot.
If you have a DEC machine that has an ability to show its hardware
address (e.g. just about anything except a uVax II), you can pull
the bipolar PROM on the DEQNA and drop it into the "more capable"
machine and show the address burnt into the PROM. AFAIK all the DEC
hardware address PROM's are interchangable.
Alternatively, just boot VMS on the uVax, get into NCP, and do a
SHOW CHAR LINE * to show the hardware addresses of all the configured
ports:
$ mcr ncp
NCP>show char line *
Known Line Volatile Characteristics as of 9-MAR-1999 17:37:22
Line = SVA-0
Receive buffers = 10
Controller = normal
Protocol = Ethernet
Service timer = 4000
Hardware address = 08-00-2B-39-7B-64
Device buffer size = 1498
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
This should probably be in the scanning document thread but... What format
should I used for this kind of scans? I thought GIF was pretty universal.
I'm not sure if I can produce PS outputs and the size of the files, I'll
give it a try... Hold on...
Francois
>This gives me an interesting dilemma. Is it going to be quicker for me to
>figure out some way to print that out on my Postscript printer or for me
>to trace the schematics out from the real hardware :-)
>
>-tony
>
Ok, so a uVax II can't do a 'test 50' to print out its MAC address, and it
isn't marked on the card itself. I can't seem to get tcpdump to see
anything, do I need a sniffer to get this puppy?
--Chuck
You wrote...
>PERQ? (Or do you count the fact that you can get them with PERQ systems
>and ICL nameplates as badging. On the grounds they were partially
>developped by both companies, I am not so sure).
I would have to call that rebadging, but I do see your point on that one.
>PERQ 3a (only ever ICL)
>
>Philips machines (although they _did_ badge other people's PCs at one
point)
>
>Acorn Archimedes?
>
>HP9100 (a computer in all but name)
>
>Xerox Alto, D-machines?
Yes, but would most people call ALL of these classic? Not to disparage them,
but... perhaps it's my interpretation of "classic" getting in the way.
Jay West
I just uploaded the schematics as published in Radio Electronics in May 1976
it's at :
www.pclink.com/fauradon
under the tech info page.
Francois
>I picked up an 8080 bread board trainer made by E&L Instruments this
>weekend. Does anyone have a manual for it?
>
> Joe
>
